“German history is handled as rotten and made to look ridiculous,” Björn Höcke said in a speech to a crowd of hundreds of Germans. When Höcke, a leader of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, finished the speech, he was given a standing ovation.

Mr. Höcke, clean-shaven and in his 40s, is an educator by trade and a powerful speaker. He is one of the founders of the AfD in the small German state of Thuringia. Since the AfD was founded in April 2013, it has seen its poll numbers surge to almost 15 percent. In his January 17 speech, delivered in a “chandelier-lit beer hall,” according to the New York Times, Höcke said that Germany needs to reevaluate its history.

Germany’s current attitude toward its shameful Nazi past was a “stupid coping policy,” he told the audience. Germany needed “180-degree reversal on the politics of remembrance”:

Instead of bringing up the new generation with the great philanthropists, the world famous, groundbreaking philosophers, the musicians, the ingenious explorers and inventors, of which we have many—maybe more than any other people in the world—and instead of exposing our students in schools to this history, … German history is made into something rotten and ridiculous.

“Germans are the only people in the world to plant a monument of shame in the heart of its capital,” said Höcke, referring to Berlin’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Is he saying it is wrong for Germans to feel shame and guilt over the systematic murder of 6 million Jews?

“The AfD is the last revolutionary, the last peaceful chance for our fatherland,” Höcke said, at times having to shout over the cheers of his supporters. At one point, the crowd broke into chanting, “Deutschland, Deutschland.”

Until now, as our editors wrote in the Trumpet Weekly newsletter, the Trumpet “has been cautious in labeling the AfD as far-right. We point to the worrying trend it is part of, but the AfD has been careful not to cross the line over into outright neo-Nazism. No more.”

Speeches like this that provoke the audience to forget Germany’s shameful history and disparage war memorials have moved past the point of “national self-interest.” Such speeches are dangerous.

Yet the fact that many have already labeled the AfD as racist, neo-Nazi or white nationalist has not decreased the group’s popularity. For a long time now Edmund Stoiber, a veteran of German politics, has been warning the Christian Social Union (csu) that they have allowed another party to address the concerns of conservative citizens. The AfD has been able to steal the votes of Germans unhappy with the csu’s moderate approach.

The New York Times described how the AfD approach is working in Germany:

Mainstream parties in Germany have long eschewed charisma-driven politics—in the style of personality-centered movements—and have avoided shows of overt nationalism. But that leaves an opening: A populist party like Alternative for Germany can indulge those ideas just enough to excite its supporters without scaring off larger groups of voters.The Alternative for Germany supporters who were gathered in Dresden, the capital of Saxony, [for Mr. Höcke’s speech] seemed animated in a way that is unusual when it comes to modern politics in Germany. Most Germans rarely feel allowed to get excited about their political beliefs or, just as sensitive an issue, about their national identity.The atmosphere lent the evening a feeling of thrilling transgression, as if the act of cheering half-forbidden ideas was as important, or perhaps more so, than the ideas themselves.

Politics in Germany aren’t known for being invigorating. Listening to some of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s speeches will give you the impression that she wants you to snooze through them. Her trademark button-up jacket, worn each day in a different color, almost makes you think she is trying to be uninteresting.

To be fair, AfD leader Frauke Petry distanced herself from Höcke’s speech, saying, “With his unauthorized solo actions and constant crossfire, Björn Höcke has become a burden for the party.”

But Höcke’s message is one that many Germans want to hear. A Forsa survey last March showed Petry receiving only 47 out of 100 “trust points” from her own AfD supporters. For decades, Germans have come to expect a vote for their party to mean a vote for the grand coalition: a union of the center-left and center-right parties. For an American, this would be like voting for your party knowing the end result would be a government run by moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats. Many Germans want something different, and the AfD promises to deliver that.

Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote in “A Strong German Leader Is Imminent” that “when Germans become anxious about world events, they call on a strongman to lead them! They have done so time after time throughout their history, and they are about to do it again.” Later, in the November-December 2015 Trumpet magazine, Mr. Flurry wrote about Germany’s choice for its future—one that Spiegel Online characterized as “Dark Germany” versus “Bright Germany.” In some ways, it is the same choice that nearly 15 percent of voters have made between the grand coalition and the new AfD. Mr. Flurry asked:

Will this nation lose control of its borders and succumb to the flood of immigrants until much of it becomes more foreign than native? That is what we are seeing in Britain and the U.S. Or will Germany find some bright, enlightened course of action to solve this crisis?Or—will it respond with a strongman—and a dark Germany?

In that same article, Mr. Flurry focused on the vision of the post-war German politician Franz Josef Strauss, writing:

He was literally known in the press as “the strongman of Europe”—not just Germany. They called him “a man for emergencies.” He was unafraid to challenge others. …In 1965—just 20 years after World War ii, when few would have envisioned Germany as a re-emergent world power—Strauss wrote a book titled The Grand Design: A European Solution to German Reunification. It explained how Germany could rise to power again—as part of a federal Europe. The central idea behind Strauss’s vision was what he called “a massive drive to achieve, step by step, a European political federation.” He spoke out for the reunification of Germany, effectively preparing the nation for its unification in 1989, and was instrumental in developing the European Union as a means of achieving German ambitions.A great deal of Strauss’s vision has since become reality. Beyond that, the strongman persona he embodied is one that could hold the key for Germany’s future!

“Biblical prophecy makes the answer clear,” Mr. Flurry concluded. “A strongman is on the scene, just waiting for the right moment to emerge in order to realize Strauss’s vision for Germany and for Europe!”